Minarets in Switzerland

[shootingstar]

Well, it happened just a few days ago, Oak in local press. The local press was happily reporting the fact that China will make it easier for their folks to visit British Columbia as tourists.

The barrage of some negative, dumb comments at end of article is amazing but not surprising.
http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/c...286/story.html

Demographic makeup of Vancouver and Toronto is here, based on the latest census:
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/english/c...CSDFilter=5000

It means Metro Vancouver & several suburbs= 2+ million, of which 380,000+ Chinese descent, 180,000+ South Asian descent.

Toronto is Metro Toronto ( including Oshawa, Pickering, Mississauga, etc.) 5+ million. And see the rest in terms of realities.

Of course, some of those numbers would include international students, 4th-generation Canadians (some who haven't even been to Asia yet), recent landed immigrants (No, we don't call them "aliens". That truly is not a Canadian term. It's "landed immigrant". Or "foreigner" if one truly doesn't have any formal papers to live in Canada temporarily. The term, "illegal aliens" is inaccurate in Canada. They are not extraterrestial creatures. The word "alien" if my history memory serves me right, was used for the Chinese immigrants in the early 1900's in North America.)

Even I was surprised by the numbers.. I will confirm anecdotally: I didn't see much of South Asian-Canadian cyclists at 5 different bike commuter locations throughout City of Vancouver, where I volunteered this spring and fall. Many do live out in the suburbs...where it's possible to buy the all-Canadian dream of a decent home and have a car.

There's a whole whack of outreach work on cycling ..if the interest isn't there already.

Sorry, I'm trying to make this cycling-related.